Bring Me Home for Christmas (Virgin River #16)(71)

Jack grew suddenly serious. “Becca, I hope you know I support Denny in his decision to leave, to go to a place he can have a life and family with you.”

“I know,” she said. “I appreciate that. Where will you go tomorrow? To check on people?”

He thought for a moment. “Mel will go out to the Thicksons and check on the kids. She’ll check on the young mother. Noah will see about some of his elderly congregation. Me and Preacher, we’re kind of in charge of the outlying areas. There are folks out on the ridge and up the mountain a ways that need help digging out. Thank God no one got out on a trail and lost!”

“Has that happened?” she asked, sitting straighter.

“It’s happened in good weather! This is no place to wander if you don’t know where you’re going. Becca, you haven’t seen the half of Virgin River.”

She laughed. “I’m going to miss this place.”

“And this place will miss you. You were a huge, one-legged help.” She just laughed at him. “Seriously,” he said. “Terrific meat loaf and potatoes. And there will be terrific meat-loaf sandwiches for a long time!”

“Thanks. Although I don’t have a future in a bar and grill kitchen, I’m finding it kind of hard to leave….”

“Is that so?”

She shrugged. “A couple of weeks ago I was feeling like I’d been real lucky to meet such nice people. By now I feel like you people are the closest friends I’ve had in a while.”

He laughed. “That kind of happens here. We get bonded real easy when we pull together for a cause. A big snowstorm is a cause.”

“I was scared to death,” she said, but her smile was huge. “I had fun.”

Jack stilled. “Let me get this right…”

“Yeah, scared to death and fun. It’s kind of a pattern. I’ve always been like that. My mom always said I just didn’t like things easy. She’s the mother of the century, you know—managed the perfect home. Everything was always stable, secure, perfect. I mean, she wasn’t the kind of mother people write bad mother novels about—she really is awesome. So what did I always need? I needed to jump out of airplanes or surf the biggest waves or barrel race on horseback. Anything with a rush.”

He grinned largely. “My wife’s the same,” he said. “Mel’s a longtime adrenaline junkie. She spent ten years in an inner-city E.R. If it wasn’t scary and risky, she was unenthused.”

“I get that.” Becca laughed. “Yet Denny is the one who went to war. Twice.”

“Totally different,” Jack said. “He’s a trained Marine. He’s not looking for war, he’s responding. You and my wife? You like the edge.”

She laughed happily. She felt so understood. “Mel doesn’t seem like that now,” she said.

“She’ll be like that forever. She holds the health of this town in her hands—a very big job. They depend on her completely. We have a good doctor, but Mel is still delivering a lot of the babies, sometimes under adverse conditions, getting financial assistance, writing grants, you name it. Before we were married, she let a pot grower take her out to a grow site to deliver a woman in big medical trouble. I found out later that he took her at gunpoint. I almost lost my f**king mind… Sorry.

“It’s okay,” she said. “She did? She did that?”

He grew serious. “That was not smart—adrenaline junkie or not.”

“Of course,” she said. “Not smart.”

He relaxed. “Thing is, life around here seems balanced against two extremes. Calm and challenging. That’s why we stick together. When you get down to it, that’s the only option. Fortunately, it’s calm and beautiful most of the time. It’s also a frontier.”

“Denny’s right about one thing—it would be a good place to raise a family. Too bad I don’t have a job here.”

“That job thing? I could make that happen,” he said.

She leaned an elbow on the bar. “And how are you going to do that? I don’t think you need another cook or waitress.”

“A school. We’ve been wanting a school. At least, for the little kids.”

“Don’t tempt me,” she said.

He turned away from her briefly, just long enough to pour her a glass of the white wine she seemed to enjoy. He put it in front of her. “Would tempting you work?”

“Ha ha. You don’t happen to have a school.”

“I could have one in a matter of weeks. Remember my friend Paul? He could throw up a prefab modular building in no time at all. The construction would insult him—he’s very proud of his work and never cuts corners. But the price and speed would fit right into this town’s needs.”

“Where would you put it?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Probably down the street—there’s a lot of available land between the most populated part of town and Noah’s house. For that matter, I think the church basement is mostly available. But the town should have an elementary school.”

“How many teachers do you plan on luring here?” she asked, sipping her wine.

“I was thinking one. One teacher. And probably teacher’s helpers. It would be good if, for starters, the little kids didn’t have to ride that bus into the valley. When you add up all the kindergarten, first, second and third graders, there aren’t all that many…”